Journaling

Write Every Day

/ bperica / 3 Comments

Do I have a piece of advice for new parents? Heck no! I am flying by the seat of my pants, making things up as I go along, convincing myself I am doing it the right way until I find out I am doing things completely wrong. I haven’t subscribed to a parenting magazine and I don’t listen to parenting podcasts. Maybe I should do one of those things. I know I would learn something, but then there is always the time.

Do I have the time? No. Sometimes. I don’t know. I probably do have the time, but remembering every little thing I am supposed to do during that time–when she is sleeping or at preschool–is very, very difficult. Many of the tasks seem overwhelming or too time-consuming, like if I take time to peruse through a parenting magazine for an hour and London simultaneously takes a short nap, all I can say about my day is that I read a parenting magazine. Forgive me, but I want more out of my precious free time. By now I have probably given you the impression that I have no interest in learning about parenting or becoming a better parent. That is just not the case.

What got me on this topic of advice was a question a friend asked me months ago. It was not a blanket appeal for advice for new parents. The question was broader than that. What have I found to be helpful? What was a waste? What would I do differently? It was a multi-parter, but without the requirement of answering each part. I have got a simple answer for one part.

Screen Shot 2017-09-29 at 1.36.30 PMWhat have I found to be helpful?

Write a few words about every day you have with your child. When you are in the thick of it, you can think to yourself, I have no time or energy for this. This is often true. It’s okay if you get a few days behind and have to write an entry for a few days back. But there is another excuse, I’ll never forget this. Oh, how wrong you are. There is so much happening each and every day that there is no way to remember each and every day. Your kid can say something hilarious one moment and then the next you are rushing to get out the door and by the time you get back home you know that something great happened that morning but you can’t recall what it was that happened.

So, my advice, if you want to call it that, is to buy a one line a day journal that covers five years. I have written about these journals before. I just bought this one for my baby boy…arriving any day now. Name suggestions anyone?

For the days of firsts, you will likely have photos and videos of crawling, walking, talking,  and maybe even sitting on the pot. But if you don’t write it down, you will forget your kid’s reaction to his first popsicle, the name of a friend made at music class, or that day your kid takes a glorious three-hour nap (September 10, 2016).

Do not fret if you don’t write something every day. I do write something every day, but it took me a while to get into that habit. There are too many blank days in London’s first year and a half of this journal, but better to get into this habit later than never. Now, I am on a streak of 2+ years and her journal has become one of the most-prized possessions in my entire house.

If the house goes down in flames, I am getting my family out and then going back for this journal and, if I have the time, a backup of the hard drive on this computer (photos!). Everything else can be replaced.

But do not forget the journal. Even the sharpest of minds cannot bottle up all the precious days of infancy and toddlerhood.

Too Many Journals

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I would think twice about giving new parents a journal. Chances are, they already have three…at minimum.

They don’t need but one place to write their thoughts down about the expecting, the arrival, and the aftermath of their first child. We were lucky and probably only got about five journals, enough to record every minute of IMG_6093every day for the first three years.

Among people who journal, my devotion to it is moderate and, still, I am considerably disappointed by my lack of devotion to it. After all, it’s what writers do.

I’ve got a bookshelf of empty journals and I bet quite a few people can say the same, long before they have kids. For me, the site of an empty journal, which has been on my bookshelf for a decade, can be a consistent reminder of failure. (Note to self: move all empty or one-tenth-completed journals to box in basement.) Perhaps it’s the same with the people you are giving that journal too. Perhaps it’s not. But before you go ahead and give them that new-parent journal you better do a journal inventory of their bookshelves (in all rooms) and then assess whether these parents need more blank pages in their house.

If you do that assessment and you decide to still get a journal, I have a recommendation. It’s called Mom’s One Line A Day. It’s my favorite journal with the crappiest title. It offers six narrow lines of writing space for each day for five years. On each page you can see what you were doing on the same date in a five-year span. Now that’s a crapload of journaling, don’t get me wrong, but at six lines a day, even if your handwriting is small, it fills up fast.

Even with that knowledge, I fail to write in it half the days, but since Kate and I have used this journal for over a year now we have a considerable record of London’s first 15 months (nearly).

More momentous are some days than others, but I have found it helpful even to write down the seemingly mundane. Example: April 21, 2015 – 2 naps still. Read HP (book 6) out loud to you and some of A Game of Thrones. Outside in backyard you watched as I planted some herbs.

And right above that entry, I can see that on April 21, 2014, I wrote: Dad started reading The Hobbit to you today. You can’t truly follow the story but you know my voice and somehow you can tell when I start reading each day because you smile every time. It’s truly amazing.

So, if you must, pull the trigger on the Mom’s One Line A Day journal. It’s just the right dose of urging the parents to write about this spectacular time in their lives.

One Year Ago Today

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IMG_2988

Mom’s hands comfort London on February 4, 2014.

One of the most important things Kate and I did in the frantic, scary days following London’s birth was to write down what we did, even if it was watching some television to unplug for a minute. I am so thankful we have a journal from that time and from most of London’s NICU stay. Today I want to share with you what I wrote on February 5, 2014, London’s sixth day of life.

Wednesday.

Nana and Papa (my parents) told us that we could do whatever we wanted to this day and they would take care of dinner and grocery shopping and whatever else. We, of course, chose to sit next to you for the day. So we did. It was exhausting, the most tiring thing I’ve ever done, to sit next to you and constantly worry, watch the monitor, and pay attention to each and every beep.

You had a decent day. You had one more dose of drugs this night at 7, hoping to close that PDA of yours.

We had leftovers for dinner tonight. Nana and Papa came to the hospital to pray with us and to see you. They knew we were exhausted from being with you.

We watched Downton Abbey tonight, but Kate fell asleep. She is so exhausted from producing all that milk for you. I finished the episode with Nana and Papa and went to bed for the night. They stayed up though and watched another episode of Breaking Bad.

It’s silly what I wound up writing down some days, but even the mention of watching Downton helps me visualize that evening and what came before and what followed.

Maybe by chance you just found this blog and you have a baby in the NICU. If you haven’t already started a journal, I highly recommend getting one and starting today. It’s never too late. A lot of people might say, and you might think this yourself, that I will never forget such days as those immediately following the birth of my preemie. There is some truth to that, but there is only so much room in our heads and some bits of information slip away, unless you are one of those people who can remember every single day of their lives, every meal, every drive to work, etc. Chances are that this is not the case, so go get yourself a journal.